Kosovars Seem Closer To Accepting Peace Deal

March 04, 1999|By From Tribune News Services.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia — There were indications Wednesday that ethnic Albanians in Kosovo were coming around to accepting a peace deal for the troubled province, increasing pressure on rival Serbs to follow suit.

U.S. officials in Washington said there had been "good progress" in efforts to win the approval of the ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population of the Serbian province, for an internationally sponsored proposal for interim autonomy.

And the leader of a key Kosovo Albanian political party said he believes that the ethnic Albanians would sign the deal when peace talks with the Yugoslav government resume in France on March 15.

During the initial round last month the ethnic Albanians, including delegates from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrilla group, gave tentative approval to the autonomy proposal, which falls short of their demands for outright independence.

"There's good progress with the Kosovars," said White House spokesman David Leavy. "There are indications that they are going to officially embrace the political settlement, and we are encouraged by that and we're going to move forward to lock that in."

The Serbian side agreed in principle to most of the political conditions in the plan but objects to a provision that would allow NATO troops into Kosovo to oversee it, seen by the West as crucial to its success.

Separately, humanitarian workers took advantage of a lull in fighting Wednesday to rush aid to thousands of displaced ethnic Albanians massed along Kosovo's border with Macedonia. Aid agencies sent in food, blankets, mattresses, medicine and other items.

Defying NATO warnings, Yugoslav army and Serbian police forces have pounded suspected KLA rebel positions along the border for several days.

Yugoslav forces refrained from attacks on rebel positions Wednesday but sent a convoy of armored vehicles through the strategically important area in a show of strength.

Infantry fighting vehicles and trucks loaded with army troops and carrying heavy weapons rumbled through the border zone before returning to a base at Urosevac, halfway between the capital of Pristina and the main Macedonia-Kosovo border crossing.

About 4,000 people have been displaced by the recent clashes, UN refugee agency spokesman Fernando del Mundo said.

Some have crossed into Macedonia or found shelter within Kosovo, while several hundred remain stuck on mountain slopes in cold weather.

Yugoslav forces are trying to assert control over the Macedonian frontier amid a heightened threat of action by NATO forces assembling just across the border in preparation for enforcing a peace deal.